Pierre Omidyar: First Digital Magazine to Launch in 'Coming Weeks'

First Look Media — the newly formed media venture from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and Glenn Greenwald — is beginning to take shape, with the first of a series of digital magazine to be launched in "coming weeks," according to Omidyar.

The company announced in a video Monday that the company structure will center around a flagship First Look outlet, backed up by a variety of semi-autonomous digital magazines led by particular journalists as well as a shared infrastructure of researches, fact checkers, data journalists and designers.

Media will take up a major portion of the new venture, but a separate technology company is also being started to provide First Look journalists with the newest tools for creating and distributing content.

"What's not included in the video is specific timing about some of our plans. We'll launch First Look Media's flagship news site later this year. There's a lot to be done between now and then, given we're creating a general interest news site that will cover topics ranging from entertainment and sports to business and the economy," Omidyar wrote in a blog post.

"That said, there's some news that just needs to get out and is too important to wait. In the coming weeks, we'll be launching the first of our digital magazines, publications that have an independent editorial voice and a unique look and feel, led by a visionary and experienced journalist or team of journalists. We'll share more about this soon."

"Rather than embedding technologies in the news room, we're building a technology company along side the news room," said Eric Bates, who joined First Look in November after leaving his role as executive editor of Rolling Stone. "We're going to be looking at how to build technology that tells stories and distributes new stories in different ways."

While First Look will include investigative journalism — Greenwald is just one of a series of high-profile journalists including Liliana Segura, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras — the broader collection of media titles will span a variety of topics like entertainment and sports.

"I think that's very much a misperception. I think that's Glenn's work and his work will remain very much in the vain of what it's always been, but that's a piece of what we're doing," Bates said.

Omidyar, a billionaire who made his fortune by founding eBay, has taken on the role ofphilanthropist and entrepreneur, having started Peer News and the Honolulu Civil Beat. First Look is set to be his most ambitious project yet, having already committed $50 million.

While the structure of First Look has emerged, there is plenty that still needs to be figured out.

"We don't even have job titles at this point," Bates told Mashable. "We're all sort of doing everything."

First Look's flagship media product will launch later this year, Bates confirmed, along with the possibility of the launch of some of the more focused digital magazines.

However the company is not in a particular rush, Bates added.

"It's so rare to get an opportunity not only to build something from the ground up, but to build it without the pressure of producing content on a daily basis," Bates said. "Whatever we have up and running, that day will come soon, in the meantime its nice to have the breathing room to step back and think about all these issues that you're raising without having to feed the daily beast."

http://mashable.com/2014/01/27/greenwald-omidyar-coming-soon/